Wat is Z-Wave

We will be happy to explain!

Nowadays more and more people are automating their home. This is called smart home or home automation. There are many alternatives for sale to integrate different appliances into one network and to control them by using the computer or an app on your smartphone. Think of the control of the central heating system, alarm, lighting, security cameras, the roll-down shutters and motion sensors of your home. When you want to automate your home wireless, you can choose between different appliances and protocols that can control your smart home. Here we review one of these protocols: the Z-Wave standard.

What is the Z-wave standard?

Z-Wave is a popular protocol for the wireless automation of your home. It is used to encrypt, send, and receive communication between appliances that automate your home. The protocol has been around for ten year now and is used worldwide. Nowadays more than 250 producers of among other things sensors en controllers are using the Z-Wave standard. These producers, suchs as Fibaro (with her Fibaro Home Center 2 and Fibaro Home Center Lite), Zipato, Vera, Homeseer, Domoticz and Domotiga, have united themselves in the Z-Wave Alliance.

Z-Wave network

How does Z-Wave work?

In Europe the Z-Wave network works on the 868MHz frequency. You can have a maximum of 232 connections or intersections (so-called nodes) in your network. The z-wave-network is controlled by a primary controller, which registers all nodes in the network and gives all these nodes an unique identification code (ID). Do not expect that the Z-Wave network will be as dynamic as a computer network based on ip-addresses. Mainly because of energy savings, the Z-Wave network is rather static and particularly works well when all appliances have a fixed location within the network. An advantage of the Z-Wave network though is that all appliances that are connected to the energy grid serve as a router. Firstly that means that the range of the network, with sufficient connected appliances/ routers, can be extended to 200 meters. That is more than enough for most homes. Apart from that it means that even when the primary controller is down, at any time you still are able to add new appliances to the Z-Wave network.

Z-Wave in comparison to other protocols/ products

Z-Wave is primarily meant for home usage. In general, the quality of the products of the alliance of Z-Wave producers is less than that of those for professional usage. However, the price is significantly lower than for products that automate buildings professionally. The Z-Wave protocol is reliable and offers an excellent value for money. Because of the alliance of over 250 producers there are many appliance available. The Z-Wave network offers good encryption of the data it transmits. Compared to other protocols for home automation, such as RTS of Somfy, you can choose from much more products as the result of the support of many producers. Apart from that, the 200 meters reach of the Z-Wave network is larger than other network protocols for home automation offer. This is why the Z-Wave protocal is an excellent solution for consumers.